(26) QuickFact: Ranges Are Less Polarized On Dynamic Turns Than On Static Turns.

Turn Aggression

I’ve mentioned before how winning players look for reasons to bet, while losing players are constantly searching for reasons to check. While it’s important to use this approach on every street, it’s more important to look for ways to stay aggressive on the turn than any other street.

The benefits of maintaining aggression on the turn are easy to grasp. For example, double-barreling with a high frequency makes sense because most opponents calling ranges on the flop are typically wider than on the turn. In addition, the fact that pots are growing bigger means there is more dead money to capitalize on. That said, just because there are several good reasons to maintain our aggression on the turn doesn’t give you a license to double-barrel or check-raise every time.

So if we can’t pull a Ziigmund and fire away on every turn, then what determines if we can stay aggressive? More specifically, what should we be paying attention to in order to choose the best line? To help you remember what to look for I decided to borrow a very simple equation from my good friend Andrew Seidman (BalugaWhale), which states that:

Pot Equity + Fold Equity = Aggression

Seems simple, doesn’t it? That’s because it is. The combination of fold equity and pot equity is mandatory for us to stay aggressive on the turn. Sometimes you’ll have so much pot equity that you’ll barely need any fold equity to make staying aggressive profitable, and other times, you’ll have so much fold equity that you won’t need very much pot equity to make betting profitable.

Counting outs and estimating the amount of pot equity you have is pretty straightforward, but where the challenge lies for most players is figuring out how to calculate how much fold equity they have against a range of opponents. We’ll expand on this in the following sections. For now, just realize that when you find yourself on the turn without any pot equity or fold equity, it’s probably a good time to wave the white flag and give up the pot. Remember, it rarely makes sense to fire away without any equity, because after all, in PLO we have equity often, so why not bluff with some equity instead of zero equity?

To give you a visual of the impact that equity has on the profitably of your bluffs, I want you to check out the all-in semi-bluff table at the end of the QuickStats document before you go any further. Completely memorizing the entire table is unnecessary, but at the very least observe the vast difference in profitability that our bets have when we have no equity in the pot, compared to when we have a seemingly small amount of equity, like 20% or less.

Static Turn Textures

What kind of chapter would this be if we didn’t learn some new definitions? These are definitions I learned from Tom Chamber’s book titled Advanced PLO Theory. If you’re interested in learning more about these concepts, then I definitely recommend heading to www.nutblocker.com for more information.

In Boarding School, we analyzed the differences between static and dynamic board textures. We’ll be using the same definitions and concepts learned in Chapter 8 to analyze turn texture as well. For example, if I say that a flop texture is static, that means few hands have equity against the current nuts. Likewise, a static turn texture means the nuts is unlikely to change on the river and relatively few hands have equity against the nuts.

The most common example of static turn textures is boards where the nuts are a flush or the board is paired, and a small handful of the straight or set boards (like A♣K♠Q♥7♦ and K♣8♠3♥2♦). On static turn textures, since there are only a few hands doing well against the current nuts, a polarized range dynamic is created.

Since ranges are more polarized on the turn, they will be polarized on the river as well. This means that bluffing on static turns is powerful because opponents are concerned about calling another bet on the river, as well as the potential for drawing terribly against the top of your range.

Dynamic Turn Textures

Dynamic turn textures are different in a couple of ways. On dynamic turn textures, the nuts are likely to change on the river, which means that relatively many hands have good equity against the nuts. Examples of dynamic turn textures are most of the boards where the nuts is a set or a straight, and for the most part, these are the spots where you see many 60/40 and 66/33 percent equity match-ups.

In the previous section, I mentioned that static turn textures typically lead to a two-street polarized range game. Think about what we learned, and then see how it compares to dynamic turn textures, which lead to river ranges that include many hands that were drawing or semi-bluffing on the turn. Contrary to static turns, dynamic turn ranges are typically less polarized. On dynamic turn textures, the best strategy involves more aggression as semi-bluffing with hands that have reasonable equity against the nuts, or calling in position with the intention of bluffing a completed draw on the river.

WANT TO WIN MORE MONEY?

I’ve helped more than 1000 players master the fundamentals, increase their winrate, and finally move-up in stakes for good. Take this 30 second survey so I can send you a customized blueprint that’s guaranteed to help you achieve your goals in PLO.

Simply fill out this survey, and I promise to do whatever it takes to help you become the next success story…